Magical Summer. Mine. Not yours, since I won't be around for much of it to make it magical for you. Sorry.

So I expected that when I moved up here, that I'd be blogging a lot more. It's become this weird contradiction, though: I don't do anything except work out, write, and work...but I also don't have any time because all I do is work out, write, and work. But I kind of miss blogging on here all the time, so I'm gonna try to do it more.

Not for you, though. I'm doing it for me.

So I guess we'll just talk about my amazing thoughts and feelings and stuff.

I had this day or two of panic about a week ago. My expectation of how much time I'd have to myself and how much time I'd spend with my family was, in reality, reversed. I love my family, but...I think we'd all agree that we gain much more from each other when we spend quality time vs. quantity. And it's hard, y'alls. I am definitely not operating at my highest self when I'm around my parents. I know it's not a phenomenon - a lot of people feel this - I always feel like I automatically revert to a bratty 13 year old whenever in the presence of my parents. And it was those little things that just built up in the course of a day: I hadn't cleaned up the cabin before heading to the house to work, and my parents went in there without telling me (it really, really bothers me when people enter my space when I'm not expecting it). My dad got the mail and asked me about a letter I had gotten. My mom kept talking about the cell phone bill, which was stressing me out because I hadn't yet gotten a check from a client that was months overdue.

And it's hard, to do away with that emotional memory of how trapped I felt the last time I lived here. Like there were no real choices open to me, and I had to just swallow everything I didn't like about the place and the people because I didn't have anywhere else to go (or any means to get there). This time it's completely different, because I want to be here, and I have a purpose for being here, and I'm in a completely different place then where I was eleven years ago (thank god). And I leave any time I want, and I have limitless options available to me. But that emotional memory, man...it's like a rubber band. It keeps wanting to snap back to where it used to be, to the shape in which it was originally made.

So I made myself a promise the other night. It sounds really cheesy, so I'm worried that sharing it with you will crack this ultra-cool and sophisticated image you all have of me, but...I promised myself that this was going to be the most magical summer I've ever had. I've had a few magical summers before, but they were mostly dependent on the fact that I fell in love or had a boyfriend or some such shit like that. This one is just for me. Because that's just kind of the thing, you know? If you tell yourself that you're going to have a magical summer, and really look for things and people and events that do and can and will make it magical, then it becomes...magical.

So there's this effort that I've been making. A lot of what this summer is about is shedding baggage. The book is about processing all this emotional stuff and creating something that might be of worth to someone else. The working out and walking and just getting out there is about shedding the physical baggage and those small, subconscious things I do to keep myself in that comfortable place where I feel like I don't deserve to have good things (and therefore I don't have to work hard and ask for and expect good things from myself and for others). And the rest of it is about slowing down, enjoying and reveling in what I have in the present*, and just freaking sitting on the deck and staring at the water and the sun and the pine trees and feeling lucky that I get to do this.

Also, the writing? So good lately. There is nothing compared to the feeling of waking up in the morning after a day of great writing. The only word I can think to use that comes at all close to describing it is fulfillment. The book has hit a couple of roadblocks, and I stepped away from it for a day or two, took a walk in the woods, and came up with two new stories that I'll be leisurely fleshing out when I need a break from the book.

Also, we need to find a new way to talk about this book, because I used to call Holiday Chick The Book when I was working on it, so I can't really call this book The Book because that's confusing. And I'm not going to call it by its title yet, because that always feels to me like I'm naming and talking about a baby that I haven't even given birth to yet, and when people do that kind of stuff it creeps me out. So we gotta figure it out. The Book Dos? World Domination, Step 2? The Second Coming of Amber's Book of Feelings?




*Yes, I started reading Eckhart Tolle and I can't say that I'm enjoying it, but I can say that it does speak to me and my life at the moment.